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To Fry Turbot Cutlets

Fried cutlets of turbot fish coated in egg and breadcrumbs, optionally battered.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

To Fry Turbot Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut the fish from the bones into cutlets about one hand's breadth wide.

  2. Remove any skin from the dark side, but leave the skin on the pale side.

Coat and fry

  1. Sprinkle the cutlets with egg and bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the cutlets in a generous amount of dripping.

  3. Ensure there is plenty of dripping in the pan to prevent burning.

Batter alternative

  1. For an alternative, prepare batter by mixing two eggs with half a cup of milk and six tablespoons of flour.

  2. Let the batter rest for one to two hours, then beat it again before dipping the cutlets.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Turbot cutlets
The main fish, which turns flaky and tender when fried through.
Eggs
Bind the coating and help the bread crumbs stick to the fish.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust during frying.
Flour
Thickens the batter so it coats the cutlets and fries crisp.
Milk
Loosens the batter to a smooth coating consistency.

The step that matters

Keep plenty of dripping in the pan. Enough hot fat keeps the coating frying rather than scorching, and it cooks the fish evenly. Too little fat lets the crumbs burn before the fish is cooked through.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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